Sexual Double-Standard: Big Lie That Hurts Women AND Men

Men and women face the same problem: How to balance the desire for a close, intimate attachment with the desire for variety. Committing to that one very decent, sexy, interesting, well-matched person represents a foreclosure on all other possible sexual relationships.

A superficial analysis of male-female relations in cultures across the globe might suggest that women seek monogamy, whereas men put up with it. As this analysis goes, the man commits to one – often demanding – woman, while secretly lusting for that hard-bodied neighbor with the fake breasts or pretty colleague with bedroom eyes. Their wives scold them for checking out round derrieres at church or for being a tad bit too friendly with an attractive house guest.

Lining up with that superficial analysis are the findings from studies of heterosexual men and women who were asked how many sexual partners they have had and how many would be their ideal. Not surprisingly, men have reported higher numbers, reporting 2 to 4 times as many actual partners as women (1). In one survey (by Norman Brown) of Americans in their mid-40s, the number of partners reported by men versus women was 31.9 to 8.6. A survey of 52 nations asking men and women to report the number of ideal partners over the next 30 years revealed a ratio of 13 to 2.5 (2).

Yet assuming that heterosexual men are having sex with women (and not with cross-dressing men, for example), the ratio of actual partners for men versus women has to be wrong. For each new heterosexual partner a man has, a woman has one too; thus, heterosexual men and women end up with the same number of partners. It is worth noting that both young men and women typically aspire to settle down with one partner. Moreover, recent estimates of cheating in a marriage suggest that husbands and wives stray at equal rates (3).

These findings hint at what I propose is a big fat lie that men and women have long embraced about fundamental differences in male versus female sexuality. The lie starts when single men and women who are attracted to each other meet. They both very much want to have sex. Yet the presumption is that the woman is selective and wants commitment to go along with that. That is precisely what women will say -- and will think, too. David Buss explains this difference as a product of evolution (4). Because women can have few offspring, whereas men can have many, women evolved psychologically to be pickier about their sex partners and to try to keep them around to help raise their kids.

A difficulty with that explanation is that it does not offer any observable or testable way of predicting how individual women will behave. A mechanism that might allow us to predict their actions, however, is fear of being labeled a "slut" or "whore". The greater desire on the woman’s part for commitment from a man might not be because of any inherent psychological differences between men and women. It could be because of the sexual double-standard whereupon consensual sex damages the reputation of the woman, but not the man (1). Labeling a woman a “slut” or a “whore” puts her as risk for losing valuable, health protective social relationships. Although not a testable idea, an alternative to Buss's argument is that women evolved to keep other women around to help raise their kids. It would be no small thing for a woman to lose her network of support.

The sexual double-standard puts the man in the position of trying to seem more interested in a relationship than he really is to get a woman to have sex. The double-standard requires that the woman show how chaste and selective she is – she must avoid the label “slut” or “whore”. If she does yield to his pursuit of sex, she must convey that it is only because he is very attractive to her, and uniquely so.

After having sex, time reveals the true motivations of both parties. Her disappointment, on the one hand, results from discovering that he is not so inclined for a relationship. He is the a--hole; everyone agrees on that. His disappointment, on the other hand, comes only if he sticks around long enough to see that she can be just as passionate over a different man. He is not so unique to her after all. Note that the English language has no female counterpart to “cuckold”. That term is reserved exclusively for the duped man whose wife has banged another guy.

Once in a while, a man tries the “honest approach”. With a wave of his hand toward an imaginary bed, he says something like, “C’mon, neither of us has gotten laid in a while, let’s have sex.” To his dismay, this welcoming gesture backfires. Trying this approach on even the most seductive, sexually permissive woman in his social circle yields a firestorm of contempt from her. He has failed to consider the broader social context and accompanying rejection she would likely face if she were to accept such a cavalier offer.

If he wants to have sex AND be honest about his intentions, he might try saying, “Look I have a burning desire to be with you physically. As with you, it might or might not lead to anything. But I most definitely would not view you differently – only a pig would – if you agree. Of course, I wouldn’t tell anyone. And I will try my hardest to please you physically.”

Sexual harassment such as is being recommended is a crime. It's unethical to promote such a thing, though abyssmally typical of a woman to do so. She probably wants to turn you in to HR so she can have your job.

If honesty was what women wanted, the darlings would all be valiantly striding forth to overturn all those repressive laws which deprive them of the come-ons they so desperately crave. I don't see that happening.

The OP is confused because she imagines monogamy is something women try to impose on men, rather than something women are trying to escape from by overthrowing and destroying the evil Patriarchy which tries to impose it on them.

The male desire for virgins, a concept which has been thoroughly trashed by feminism, is a manifestation of the male monogamous impulse. Is there a corresponding female desire for male virgins? Not really.

One might be better off saying men are monogamous while women promote polygamy (or never argue against it) and detest monogamy.

I think the global desire for men to have a virgin and want monogamy with their choice of women (or women depending on culture) boils down to a deep need to know he is, indeed, the father of any offspring produced.

Sure, you can find guys in every corner of the world who wants a virgin, but I'm not so sure it's a universal desire by any means, especially in our freer western societies. And age also makes a difference. For example, a woman who's 35 and a virgin might be a red flag for sexual hangups that many guys don't want to deal with.

I'd say the instinct about making sure your children are your own is probably stronger.

Where to start! First if one man wants to have sex with a lot of new women, he can. And often does. So there goes your 1:1 ratio. Same for some women of course but it doesnt usually happen that way, over millennia. Why? well there are a lot of factors: power, culture, survival,what have you keep the odds off, but here s one I don t see written about often and wish more would.

I m an old lady now and would like to see more about this because I havent figured it out. But guys, imagine this: would you be so keen for sex if you didnt get a pay off every single damn time? Do you even want to hear that it s not like that for women? If there are some out there, pardon me but you arent like most of us.

For a woman to get hers, it can take a long while and getting to know and feel safe with a partner, never mind the skills involved and even biology can play dirty tricks with the equipment,and pregnancy is a biological imperative that always lurks, so even when we think we re equal and try to believe it, it aint reality. And after a lifetime of paying my own way and treating my dates far more often than they treated me( well I' liked the arts and fine food, and am no beauty, but I was generous in bed too), I' d just like to understand. What if women just wanted to be loved too and for men to know it takes longer and find us worth working for? Maybe just getting your rocks off without knowing us is cheap. That s just how it is. We re different. And I m still a feminist.

No, your 1:1 ratio doesn't go away. If it's not 1:1, just who do you think all those men are having sex with???

The author makes a good point. I've always wondered about those off-balance ratios, especially when reported without any question. Just where are men supposed to get tons of different female partners if women aren't having a lot of partners? Have men found a secret supply of lusty women on another planet???

In any population of women, there will be some who under report, some will over report for various reasons, and some will be dead-on honest.

I think it is very possible that each of those women had a very high number, some even 100 plus.

So if a small percentage of women have a very high number and the rest of the female population have a low number, the average will spread that number out. To get a low average, there would have to be some women with very high numbers and a lot with very low numbers.

The mean, median and mode all have to be measured to get an accurate picture of what's going on.

What you say is mathematically accurate and possible. But it doesn't seem likely to me because of the sheer differences in reported numbers. In many of these surveys, men typically report roughly twice the number of partners as women. By your scenario, that would mean that HALF the partners of the typical man were these rare super-high-partner-number women (like strippers as you suggest). Of the men I know quite well myself who have had a lot of partners, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Rather, in my experience, once I've gotten to honest conversations with women who realize that I, unlike a lot of men apparently, admire women who are sexually confident and enthusiastic enough to have had a lot of partners, they admit to quite a bit more than they would to a lot of guys. Ask almost any experienced woman, and she will tell you that many guys have VERY fragile egos when it comes to a woman having had more partners than them, and so they know to keep their mouths shut about it.

Many therapists will tell you the same thing. But you're welcome to keep believing in your delusion if it makes you feel more comfortable about yourself. Perhaps you find it unsettling and emotionally rattling to consider that happy, successful, intelligent women might have enjoyed a lot of sexual partners, and it makes you feel better to believe that only "bad women" like strippers, etc. would ever do such a thing? If so, your viewpoint is quaintly old-fashioned and out-of-touch.

I'm a young woman of 36, married for 14 years. Thought I wanted monogamy but realize about 6 years ago how unhappy it was making me. My husband is happy with it, but we are working out ways for me to deal with my needs.

I do believe women would have many more orgasms if we were not so sexually repressed. My home was liberal and free of religion in the traditional sense, I was aloud to discover my body and sexuality. I am a multi-orgasmic woman with a free imagination. I wish all girls and women had that opportunity, we'd put men's sexuality and libido to shame!!

I am a married woman in my 40s, 2 kids and have been cheating for years. My sex drive is very high, and I usually have a couple guys who I date for long periods of time for sex. It is a beneficial situation for myself, as I love my hubby and I will not break up the marriage. The guys I date are all married and feel the same. Slut? Whore? Think what you will, I enjoy what I do and I take care of myself.

I really think we need to redefine marriage, taking the monogamous requirement out. Marriage was created to protect property and children, let it go back to its original purpose.

What is your motive for your totally uninformative post? The only thing I can think of is you have a desire to shame the previous poster. I don't think she had such a motive. Which really makes you the shameful person here. Have you nothing better to do with your time?

women constantly lament about sexual double standards yet have zero to say about all the dating double standards where the guy has to be the one to approach,impress,court and put his head on the chopping block and often to get repeatedly shot down while the woman can just sit back like an entitled princess and excommunicate any guy she feels is unworthy...many sudies have indicated that women think 80 plus precent of guys are undateable,unscrewable and outright unworthy of them yet we never hear about that do we now ? So with all due respect i could really care less if women are judged harshly in the sexual marketplace.That said I personally do not call women sluts btw.

What about the women who don't get asked? Don't you think they feel even more rejected and helpless?

As for the 80% being undateable, I'm a guy and I'll have to admit I'm not attracted to most women, as totally shocking as that might be to you! But I'm very attracted to just the right kind for me. So I discriminate the same way.

I don't see how guys have it any worse than women. You're just feeling too sorry for yourself and you don't see what the other side is dealing with. That attitude alone would probably keep you from meeting nice women.

Woman's problem not totally solved? Man always has an orgasm? What planet are you from? I've heard from more than one woman a story about hooking up with a guy who had too much to drink and couldn't get it up. No orgasm for that poor schlub, even if she was perfectly capable of having one. Thank goodness for the trusty vibrator when she got rid of the guy!

See, getting laid is your yardstick, and so you only look at the whole value of the situation from that viewpoint. A lot of women are looking for something more, and when they look around and see men only having the yardstick of "getting laid" many of them so no value in what you so highly value. So what you say is unfair is so only by your yardstick, not a universal truth. You're just thinking inside your own box.

But even within your argument, what you say is silly. Even ugliest woman (see how you put value on women -- kind of fascinating) will get laid? Uh, yeah, by what kind of man, huh, as they would say.

But let's take all of your values and really compare here. So if you're the ugliest man on the planet, you can still get laid with the prettiest-looking woman around by paying for it. Women can't do that quite as easily. So doesn't that totally blow your statement?

Or is your whole comparison based on it having to be "free"?

You sound like someone who just wants to complain that being a man sucks, and women have it a lot better. So, just for chuckles, why don't you get an operation and change your sex to a woman and enjoy all the attention?

Are you arguing that because men have to deal with one problem, you don't care about a problem women face? This isn't some competition where want the other side to be worse off. We should attempt to solve any problems we can.

Here in the real world, things don't quite work like that. Like the fact that women earn less than their male counterparts. Or the fact that human trafficking is still a problem in the US and abroad, and that females are the most frequent victims.

How many men do you think are victims of sexual harassment compared to the number of women?

You can look at language, where a guy being called a girl, or being told he throws like a girl, is one of the worst things you can call him. If a woman does something brave, she's got balls. If a man is a coward, he's a pussy.

I would rather say that the difference in the amount of sexual partners has something to do with men who exaggerate and women who tend to understate the amount of sexual partners they had. This doesn't even have to be the result of ouright lying. The "double-standart" might bring the genders to different views as what counts as a sexual encounter.
What should also be adressed is, that the (adjusted) data might suggest that there is a small percentage of men who have sex with the majority of women. As another comment suggested, there is strong evidence that women select more harshly and that this basically results in two classes of men. A distinction that can't be made that clearly for women.
The justified resons for the "double standard" (which isn't really one) come down to:
- Women want monogamy from the alpha males (~20% of men)
- Those men don't care about monogamy because they basically swim in alternatives
- All other men favor monogamy because of scarcity of women and fear of losing their women to the alpha males.
- When a woman picks a beta male as a provider she'll get polyamorous desires because she wants to cheat on her provider to sneak in the genes of the alpha male (statistics confirm this. In America 1 out of at least 20 children are the result of cuckolding)
- So basically female polygamous desire hints at betrayal as genetic stragedy while male polygamous desire simply hints at high sexual market value

Interesting how so many people actually believe there is a big difference in the total or average number of sexual partners men and women have, or even how many times men and women have sex. Explain to me how a man can have a new female sexual partner without there being a female who is at that time also having a new male partner? And how can a guy have sex with a woman without a woman having sex?

If one prostitute has sex with 1,000 men, it's still the case that the total number of male partners all females had, and all female partners males had, is still the same. And averages are based on total, so the averages are also the same. As another person commented, it does change the median, but not the average or total, so the ratio remains exactly the same.

In this case say there are 1,000 men and 1,000 women (population has to be considered approximately equal for the two genders). Say one woman is a single prostitute and the other 999 are married to the 999 men, and one man is single. Say the prostitute, as you suggest, has had sex with all 1,000 men, while the other 999 women have only had sex with their husbands. So that means each man except for the single man, has had sex with two women (the prostitute and their wife). So that's a total of 1,999 new partner experiences for all the men, or 1.999 partners on the average. The 999 women have each had only one partner, and the prostitute has had 1,000, for a total of 1,999 new partner experiences. So all the women and all the men each total 1,999 new partner experiences.

Now, obviously, the very busy prostitute is pushing up the average for all the other women to 1.999 as a group.

But the fact remains that each woman in the group, including the prostitute, is 1.999 partners, which is EXACTLY the same as the average for men. And the totals are the same too. So it's still 1:1, exactly.

But if you're going to try to say that prostitutes are making up the difference in the ratio, I think you're on thin ice. I know a lot of guys who've slept with a lot of women, and none of them were prostitutes. And I know women who've slept with a lot of guys, and I know they wouldn't admit that to a lot of people because of slut shaming.

So if you really believe that women are modest and don't really like sex much, and men sleep around a lot, you're not really plugged into our American sexual culture in a realistic clear-headed way.

Op here. That last post wasn't from me, I'm not bad at math. If you'd read my original comment carefully you would have noticed that I actually agreed with the article where it pointed out that it is mathematically impossible to have those uneven numbers it cited. I made a suggestion where those numbers might come from. But what I also wanted to make clear was that this statistical "win-win-situation" doesn't necessarily imply that those numbers are equally distributed among the members of their respective genders.
My whole point was that those numbers are much more unevenly distributed among men. So if you pick a man out of a random group it is very likely that he had much more or much less sexual encounters than the average woman. The consequences or implications of that can be found in my original post. I don't even feel negatively about this. I just think that the point in morality and equlilibrium the article tried to make was oversimplified.

There are so many anonymouses here I wasn't replying to a particular post, just in general that so many people seem to think it's possible for women to be more modest than men in total or average numbers.

Certainly many people are below average, and a few are way above average. But I'm not sure which kind of distribution you have with the two genders. It's tempting to think some men have a huge number of partners, while women are closer to their group average. But that leaves many men needing to be below average, which doesn't seem correct either. So, in the absence of any compelling arguments to the contrary, I tend to believe that women are distributed much like men, just like their totals and averages are the same. My personal sample is not big enough to be meaningful, but perhaps it's representative. I know a guy who has had over 100 partners, and he brags about it. And I know one women who's had over 100 partners, and she doesn't brag about it. I doubt she would have told me if she didn't know beforehand that I'm totally cool about it and admire her for it. But to the more conventional judgmental people in the distance, they hear my friend bragging, and they assume my female friend is modest. So there you have just a small example.

Your theories about alpha and beta males are based on...what data exactly? If you assume that alpha females end up with alpha males, and you took the Hollywood crowd as alpha males and alpha females I don't see those females expecting (or offering) a whole lot of monogamy. lol. Newsflash -- they BOTH "swim in alternatives."

There are no "alpha-females" in the same way that there are alpha males, because female sexuality functions differently. Sure, the woman who currently is with the alpha male can always be considered the alpha female in the broader sense, but since the majority of women ALWAYS swim in alternatives, things are a little different. I'll give you data. Research suggests that about 80% of women have descendants, but only about 40% of men. This should be a pretty good example for the point I tried to make. Those numbers are from the book "is there anything good about men?" which got its data from dna-studies. If you want to know more I'm sure you can google. I'd also recommend you the book "It's not you, it's biology" regarding my claims of the existence of the alpha male and the opportunistic female sexuality.
I also find the notion of taking the hollywood crowd as scientific data pretty absurd, btw...

Alpha / Beta is a tactic alot of women seem to
enjoy using these days because it puts men into a box
and demonizes us.Do the same to them and try to put
women into categories/boxes/types etc and they go nuts with
the misogyny/woman hater/you don't deserve a decent woman crap.

"Women want a guy who is at least 6 foot or more,makes 6 figures and at least 6 or more below the belt (and usually w/dark hair) "

Yes,isn't that typical turn it around to women and make it ALL about them.Punch the victim card for yourself whenever a guy has a legitimate complaint.Women have skewered the male more the last few decades and believe me they've burned the bridges.Yes,women are INSANE you will eviscerate a guy on the size of his money,his height and his d#ck and then paint a narrative of (as you did) like 'men judge women on their breasts','men judge women on their weight' blah blah blah..and YOU do it because you have to defllect that the female gender BEATS THE HELL out of men nonstop these days like a sick getback.Guess what? Ain't happening anymore not gonna be tolerated.

Im from earth your from the depths apparently....no go back to your women's studies manual and think up a reply.

Re; Sex Payoff....Ma'am, what you are saying is arithmetically impossible. The ratio has to be 1:1. How can it not be? If some men are running around and having 20 different partners, that means 20 different women also 'notched' one more partner on her belt.

The median can be different, but not the average.

I have a counseling practice. Women are very, very open with me. I think the big reason women keep their true sexuality secret is men make a big sacrifice to be married, in terms of health and work and a number of other things. If the average husband knew how often the average wife cheated, and knew what the average woman thought of sex with other men, I don't think the average man would ever get married. Men believe something of women that is not true. It is this that gets them walking into the basement when there is a strange noise, and this that boosts their ambition and causes them to work hard to make something of themselves, in order to support the soft and devoted woman who married him. Only, I don't think that is true.

If the author's wishes come true and women are upfront about who they are, society as we know it changes. And, probably for the better for men. I'm not so sure for the better for women.

For the better of both men and women. Cheating is stressful, if there was an openness about marriage, the stress would disappear. People would continue to concentrate on children and income in the marriage without the added drama of sexuality.

(Reply to both Anon and the author)
..._assuming_ that heterosexual men are having sex with women, and ---QED--- there must be a 1:1 correlation for every heterosexual partner a woman has, a man has one too--- this nonsense just makes an _ass_ out of _you and me_.
I think that you will find that a few individuals will have a lot ---meaning, a *lot*--- of extramarital sex with a *lot* of partners! Further, these "slutty" individuals are notorious for _underreporting_ the # of individual partners they've had; even when open and honest with me, they just suck at arithmatic (among other things!): they might count eight different partners in a week; but my count, based on their (documented) exploits, might be twelve! That's 150% more than they self report! We call the phenomina of these individuals: "town bicycles" ---because they've been ridden by everyone...
Hope this helps, and remember: _the data doesn't lie, but people and researchers do!_

What I want is for men and women to open their eyes about the character of their future spouse. Just because some people cheat, does not at all imply that a given person's spouse will cheat. People -- men and women --vary greatly in how decent they are. A man who marries an arrogant, deceptive woman who builds his ego might find himself bitterly disappointed when she's moved on to building another man's ego. He might be shocked to learn that a woman barely interested in sex is now cheating! A man who marries a humble sincere woman might find her to be genuinely interested in sex with him with a very high sex drive, and discovers that she wouldn't dream of cheating and never does.

It's not just the character that matters, or some simplistic scale of "decency". People change over time. And their spouses change over time. Someone who would never cheat on their spouse in early marriage where the sex is great might change their mindset completely after years of enduring their partner's lost sex drive 20 years later.

Haven't you heard countless people say they themselves thought they'd never cheat, and yet they find themselves doing the unthinkable? Never mind finding out that your spouse did something unexpected.

Sometimes people fall in love without even wanting to, for example, by working together on a project, and things aren't the best at home with all the stress, etc. Just because you're a "decent" person doesn't mean you won't fall in love with someone else if you don't take precautions. Decent people aren't without emotions that are sometimes hard to control.

If you think you're spouse won't cheat simply because they are a "decent" person, you're a fool or you haven't experienced enough of life yet.

I cannot judge the life of another person and what she may have endured to lead to her decision to cheat. The reason I posted that comment was to say that simply because some people -- men and women -- cheat, that does not imply that your own spouse will cheat. By the same token, just because most spouses in past anonymous surveys have said they never cheated, that does not imply that a given decent person will remain faithful in the conditions you've described.

The female counterpart to cuckold is cuckquean. Not as well known, but google produces 189,000 hits, though that's far less than the 26,800,000 hits for cuckold.

As you might expect with the Internet, there are already fetish categories, sites, pictures, stories, about cuckqueaning. In fact, just like there are guys who actually enjoy and arrange to be cuckolded, there are now even women who get off on being cuckqueaned.

In the age of the Internet, if you can imagine it, somebody's probably already doing it. :)

I can agree with a lot of this, but I almost viewed this as more of a deception to the woman the man is trying to get into bed. Reading this, now I feel as though were I to hear that I would be even less inclined than I already was to agree with the man.

My hope in writing this was to help both parties understand their own and the other's motivations. My goal as a scientist is always to uncover truth. I could see where reading this might make you less inclined to consent to sex with a given man. But I'm guessing it's not because of what he says per se at the end here. It's because of understanding the likelihood that the sex would be for its own sake. Am I reading you correctly? Thank you by the way! p.s. If you could help me see why what he is saying is deceptive, I'd be grateful.